​Movie studios score victory against DVD-copying software maker

The owner of a company that offers DVD-ripping tools has been fined $30,000 for six offenses that violated Antigua’s copyright law. The pursuit of Slysoft’s Giancarlo Bettini, though, has been led by major Hollywood studios and their technology partners.

Bettini has long been a target for the Advanced Access Content
System Licensing Administrator (AACS LA), the body that develops
and licenses the copyright claims used on HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc
formats. It is led by powerful entities like Warner Bros, Disney,
Microsoft, and Intel, among others.

Yet being in Antigua, Bettini had been able to avoid the grasp of
the giant firms. In a 2013 World Trade Organization ruling,
Antigua was allowed to ignore US copyright law to recoup lost
revenue from a US-imposed trade blockade against the West Indies
island that curbed its internet gambling services.

AACS has pursued legal action against Slysoft to block its
software, yet since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is
impertinent overseas, AACS has appealed to Antigua for help.
Specifically, AACS has pointed to Antigua’s Copyright Act of
2003, which has anti-circumvention clauses.

The law says it is an offense to manufacture "any device or
means specifically designed or adopted to circumvent any device
or means intended to prevent or restrict reproduction of work, a
phonogram or a broadcastor [sic] to impair the quality of copies
made.”

The law allows for only criminal action against an offender,
meaning AACS needed Antigua to pursue charges against Bettini.
And that is what happened, marking the nation’s first conviction
under the 11-year-old law.

Bettini was found guilty in an Antigua & Barbuda court of six
charges under the law and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 per
offense, according to TorrentFreak. He was required to
settle two of the fines right away. The other four are due at the
end of April. Bettini faces six months in jail for each fine he
fails to pay.

Slysoft offered TorrentFreak little in response, as the case is
pending.

“Subsequent to the recent ruling against Bettini, his lawyer
Dane Hamilton QC immediately filed a notice of appeal so the
judgment has been stayed,” Slysoft said.

AACS now sounds ready to use the Antigua decision – and a
separate AACS case against DVDFab which resulted in the seizure
of that company’s US-based assets – to put the screws to
Slysoft’s business partners.

“[The victory against Slysoft] gives us a concrete decision
to take to others who facilitate SlySoft and their business. We
can say to those who do business with them: ‘This is an illegal
activity,'” AACS’s lawyer told TorrentFreak.

Slysoft, a local company that provides DVD and Blu-ray backup
tools, is considered a “rogue site” by the Office of the United
States Trade Representative.